pied by a thriving population, and well-cultivated. This part of the country, from its luxuriant soil and its contiguity to the United States, and also from containing the main roads and principal points of communication between the two territories, will, probably, become the most flourishing part of the Canadas. From the River Chaudiere eastward the land is more broken, irregular, and of indifferent quality, interspersed with some good lands, however, which are already settled. The country still farther east, and as far as Cape Rosier, is yet a wilderness, and being in appearance unfertile and barren, offers little encouragement to settlers. South of the heights, however, and as far as Chaleur's Bay, though the lands are of the same character, the districts, especially near the margin of the bay, are thickly settled, but the inhabitants, being employed in the fisheries, bestow little attention upon agricultural pursuits.

The country, from the eastern frontier along the northern shores of the St. Lawrence and the great lakes, in length about 570 miles, and in breadth from 40 to 50 miles, has an excellent soil and climate, and is not exceeded in fertility by any part of the American continent. It generally consists of a fine dark loam, mixed with rich vegetable mould; but it is so happily varied as to present situations adapted to every species of produce. The land eastward of the Bay of Quinté, on Lake Ontario, is a uniform level of great beauty, and is well-watered by numerous streams, which are generally navigable for boats and canoes, and supply an immensity of waterpower. From the Bay of Quinté, at a distance of about 40 miles from the eastern shores of Lake Ontario to its western extremity, runs a longitudinal ridge, of no great elevation, and of inconsiderable breadth. Another ridge, called the Queenstown Heights, extends from this point eastward along the southern shores of Lake Ontario, between these and Lake Erie, into the State of New-York. This range never rises in any part more than 480 feet above the level of the lake.

The country which lies between the Lakes Ontario and Erie, and which extends around the western extremity of Lake Ontario to the Bay of Quinté, is watered by a number of large and small streams. The land throughout is uncommonly rich and fertile, and already contains a number of flourishing settlements.

The remaining part of the tract we have been describing, which extends along the shores of Lake Erie from the River Ouse to the Lake and River of St. Clair, is an uninterrupted level, and is as fertile as any lands in Canada. That portion of the country which lies between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair is perhaps the most delightful in the provinces. The luxuriance of the soil, the diversified and warm scenery which everywhere opens to the view, the excellent fish which abounds in the river, and the profusion of game to be found in the woods, combine to attract a continual supply of new settlers to this highly-favored tract.

The northern shores of Lake Huron and Superior are yet but the home of the trapper, and little settled; the country, however, is promising, though broken by ragged steeps and ridges, and will, with the progress of emigration, soon be overspread with all the exterior signs of civilization and a thriving population.

The topographical contour of the Canadas and their geographical position, exposes them to all the extremes of climatic influences. In summer the thermometer frequently marks from 98° to 105°, but the mean range is about 80° Fahr., while in winter the cold is so severe as to freeze the mercury; this, however, is an occurrence rarely happening, and the mean

of this season is about 20° or 25° below zero. The weather during these cold days is unusually clear and healthy. The warm season endures about five months, from May to September, when the snow begins to fall, and in a short time lays thick upon the lands, protecting them from the severity of the weather until the return of spring. In the eastern sections of the country dense fogs, brought by the winds from the regions of Newfoundland, overshadow the face of the earth, and this gloomy and disagreeable state of things continues to December, when the severe frosts set in, and the atmosphere again becomes clear and bracing, and the sky is of a bright azure blue until the opening May. During the long winters of Canada the inhabitants use the sleigh instead of wheel carriages, with which they travel with great rapidity; so light is the draught that the same horse will go in one day from 80 to 90 miles. About the beginning of December all the small rivers are frozen up, from their sources, and even the St. Lawrence is interrupted in its course, and in many parts strongly bound up with ice, and becomes a high road for travellers from one shore to another.

The snow begins to melt in April, and the thaw is so rapid, that it generally disappears by the end of the second or third week. Vegetation then resumes its suspended powers; the fields are clothed with verdure, and spring can scarcely be said to exist before summer arrives. In the upper the winter is much shorter than in the lower province, nor is the cold so intense, being tempered by its proximity to the great lakes. The spring opens, and the labors of the farmer commence six weeks or two months earlier than in the neighborhood of Quebec: the climate is not liable, indeed, to the same extremes, either of heat or cold, and the weather, in autumn, is usually more favorable for securing the late crops.

Most of the causes which contribute to make the climate of the northern part of America more severe and subject to greater extremes than that of Europe on the same parallel, bear with especial force on the Canadian regions, and it is to these causes that the great length of the winters, which prove such a drawback to the country, must be mainly attributed.

The greater portion of these provinces is covered with dense forests; the trees composing which, especially on the more northern and eastern parts, do not, generally speaking, attain the same lofty size as those of the United States, nor flourish with the same exuberant vitality. The pine family and various species of evergreens, are the most numerous and predominant. Among various other kinds of trees, are the silver and American firs, Weymouth and Canadian pines, white cedar, maple, birch, American ash, basswood, hickory, two or three species of wild cherry, and numerous varieties of oak. Like the rest of the American continent, most of the plants and animals differ specifically from those of the Old World. Many of the smaller kinds of annual and perennial plants are common to Canada and regions lying much further south, which may be accounted for by the high summer temperature, while the deep snows of winter effectually protect their roots through the severest seasons; but the trees and larger shrubs, which find no shelter, belong, for the most part, to more northern and arctic regions. Of the smaller plants, the Zizania aquatica may be noticed as peculiar to Canada, and abounding in most of the swamps, (a grass, not unlike rice, and affording food to herds and occasionally to the Indian natives,) and the gensing and Canadian lily, common to this country and Kamtschatka. The sugar maple is abundant, and supplies the settlers with a cheap and useful substitute for the sugar of tropical regions. Most of the oak growing in the woods is unfit for ship-building, and the greater part of the timber used for

that purpose is cut in New-Brunswick and the New-England States. The species called the live oak, which grows in the warmer parts of the colony, is, however, said to be well adapted for ship timber; the various kinds of wood, available for no other purpose, serve to supply the pot and pearl ash manufactories.

Among the wild animals ranging through the unreclaimed regions, are the American elk, fallow deer, bear, wolf, fox, wild-cat, raccoon, marten, otter, and various species of viverra and mustelœ; the beaver, hare, grey and red squirrel, and in the more southern parts, the buffalo and roe-buck. The bears usually hybernate, if the season has enabled them to get sufficiently fat for the purpose; if not, they migrate to a warmer climate.

Among the birds may be mentioned the wild-pigeon, quail, partridge and different kinds of grouse; water-birds are very numerous, as might be inferred from the general character of the region, where, in the basin of the St. Lawrence and the numerous lakes occupying the elevated table-lands around it, half the fresh water in the surface of the globe is collected. A hummingbird, the smallest of its species, is also indigenous, and may be seen in the gardens of Quebec, flitting round the flowers and constantly on the wing.

The race of reptiles, though not so numerous or prolific as in the more southern regions of the continent, is well represented, and rattlesnakes, copperheads, &c., are occasionally met with. Fish, in great variety and abundance, swarm in the lakes and rivers, in which respect few rivers can rival the St. Lawrence. The sturgeon is common, and the salmon and herring fisheries are considerable. Seals are also occasionally met with in large shoals, in the lower parts of the river.

Forests can only exist where the prevailing winds bring with them suffi cient moisture, but they may usually be taken as a measure of the fertility of the soil, no less than of the humidity of the climate. In this respect, therefore, taken generally, the Canadas must be considered as occupying a region of fertility and unusual productiveness, the upper province much more so than the lower one. Tobacco, hemp, flax, and the different kinds of grain and pulse, are successfully cultivated, as are all the common fruits and vegetables of England and the United States. Melons of different species abound, and are probably indigenous; as are also the strawberry and raspberry these last flourish luxuriantly in the woods, and on the plains of Quebec are gathered in great quantities and carried to that market. Pears and apples succeed well, both there and about Montreal, and on the shores of Lake Erie the grape, peach and nectarine, as well as all the hardier kinds of fruit, arrive at the greatest perfection.

Canada does not appear to be rich in mineral products, but iron abounds in some districts: veins of silver-lead have been met with in St. Paul's Bay, (some fifty miles below Quebec,) and coal, salt and sulphur are also known to exist in the country. No volcanos have been discovered, but authentic accounts are preserved of several violent earthquakes; among others, one in 1663, when tremendous convulsions, lasting for six months, extended from Quebec to Tadeausac, (130 miles below that town,) which broke up the ice of the rivers and caused many great landslides and dislocations; in 1791, earthquakes were also frequent and violent in the same region, and the shores, both of the gulf and the river St. Lawrence, present many proofs of former convulsions in the horizontal banks of recent shingles and shells, and in an elevated limestone strata, with wave-scooped marks and lithodemas perforations, that occur in various parts of the shores.*

* Lyell's Geology, vol. ii.

Great excitement was lately produced by the discovery of some gold mines, near Quebec, on the lordship of M. de Lery. The gold is usually found in the bed of some stream, either in the form of dust or in rounded masses of various sizes, associated and frequently cemented with the gravel which forms the bed of the river. This gravel is collected and submitted to the process of riddling, by which a portion of the mineral, in the form of dust, gravitates to the bottom of the sieve and escapes into a trough underneath, which is gently filled with crude mercury, with which it amalgamates. The amalgam is then put into a retort and a slow heat applied, by which the mercury is volatilized, and the pure gold remains at the bottom of the retort. It is now ready for the mint, and its transportation to market is unattended with any further expense. The amount collected has not been made known, but it is probable that but little has, as yet, been gathered from its native beds. The district in which this gold is found has long been called Le Val d'Or.

Canada is divided into two provinces, named Upper or West and Lower or East. Lower Canada is divided into the four districts of Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers and Gaspé; Upper Canada is divided into eleven districts, named Home, Gore, Niagara, London, Western, Eastern, Johnston, Ottawa, Bathurst, New-castle and Midland. These are subdivided into counties, townships, seignories, parishes, &c. The counties are as indicated in the following lists:

Those of Upper Canada: York, Halton, Lincoln, Middlesex, Northumberland, Leeds, Durham, Wentworth, Carleton, Glenville, Lennox, (and Addington,) Prince Edward, Oxford, Frontenac, Glengarry, Hastings, Stormont, Simcoe, Lanark, Norfolk, Essex, Kent, Dundas, Prescott, Haldimand, Huron and Russell, altogether occupying 27,832 square miles; the remainder of the province being yet unappropriated and undivided.

Those of Lower Canada: Saguenay, Montmorency, Orleans, Quebec, Portneuf, Champlain, St. Maurice, Berthier, L'Assumption, La Chesnaye, Terrebonne, Two Mountains, Ottawa, Vaudreuil, Beauharnois, L'Acadie, La Prairie, Montreal, Chambly, Vercheres, Richelieu, St. Hyacinthe, Rouville, Missisquoi, Stanstead, Shefford, Sherbrooke, Drummond, Yamaska, Nicolet, Lothiniere, Megantic, Dorchester, Beauce, Bellechasse, L'Islet, Kamouraska, Remouski, Gaspé, Bonaventure, Towns of Montreal, Quebec, Three Rivers and William Henry, which occupy all the extent of the province, except 7,174 square miles, which is yet unappropriated.

The area of the United Canadas is 349,821 square miles, or 223,885,440 acres, and of this the upper province comprises 147,832 square miles, or 94,612,480 acres, and the lower one 201,989, or 129,272,960 acres. The population, by the returns of 1850, was, for Lower Canada, 770,000; for Upper Canada, 803,879, but since that period, the natural increase and the increase from emigration, which has been much pressed of late years, will authorize us in estimating the present (1852) population at nearly 2,000,000 souls the number of emigrants landed in the several districts in the year 1851 alone was not less than 170,000 persons, besides many who passed through the United States to that country.

The people of Lower Canada are chiefly of French extraction, but those of the upper province are British, many of whom are from Scotland: comparatively small numbers of the Irish emigrate to this country. The French population cling to old customs and prejudices, but they are honest, industrious and hospitable. They retain, indeed, all the characteristics of the old French, and present the spectacle of an old, uneducated and stationary

society, in the midst of a new and rapidly advancing country. A few families possess large properties, but among the mass of the habitans, as they call themselves, there is an almost uniform equality of condition, property and ignorance. They are a hard-working people, but few of them can read and write those who are educated exercise a great influence over the masses, and take the lead in all public affairs. The rest of the population, as before stated, is chiefly British, with some slight foreign intermixture, and to them is owing the rapid development of the productive resources of the country. Their numbers are constantly receiving new acquisitions from emigration, which of late years has obtained such an impetus, that, if unrestrained by untoward causes, the whole extent of the colonies will be overspread with thriving settlements in the course of a very few years.

The aboriginal inhabitants still occupy some regions northward of the Lakes Huron and Superior, and along the whole extent of the northern boundary; but their numbers are rapidly diminishing and melting away, like snow beneath the sun, on the approach of the modern emigrant. Little or no success has attended the efforts of the philanthropist to introduce among them habits of civilization, or to improve their condition: they are still identified with the forests, and there they will live and perish.

Lower Canada is divided into counties and seignories, the latter of which were created by the French government in favor of certain leading persons, who were bound to grant or concede a portion to any applicant, the seigneur's profit being derived from payment of a small rent or from astricted services of the tenant, from one-twelfth of the corn ground at the seignorial mill and from a fine on the transference of a property otherwise than by inheritance. To this system it is owing that the French population has been confined to a comparatively small extent of territory, and has never amalgamated with the British; for by its enabling every person to obtain a portion of land without any immediate outlay, young men were tempted to remain at home, and being subject to feudal regulations and services, the occupiers were bound to a routine system of cultivation. Hence, the French Canadians exhibit a singular want of activity and enterprize, and their portion of the province has a dense and poor population, strongly attached to ancient habits. Under the British rule, various methods of granting land have been practised; but it is now all disposed of by auction sales, the minimum price being five shillings sterling or one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, and the price is payable at the time of sale.

The French colonists are all Catholics: their clergy are numerous, and are under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of Quebec, who is paid by government. Nunneries are numerous in the different sections, and there are several public schools and colleges, at which not only the clergy but the upper classes receive their education. There is also an English Bishop of Montreal appointed by the crown, with an archdeacon and a number of clergymen in Lower Canada, and the Bishop of Toronto, two archdeacons and forty or fifty clergymen in Upper Canada. Episcopacy is not, however, the prevalent form of church government in Canada: there are a great many Dissenters, Presbyterians, &c., who, by late acts of parliament, receive government support.

We have no accurate statistics to exhibit the relative proportions of the two leading churches,*viz. the Church of England and the Church of Rome; but the returns of the secondary denominations, which are given, are complete, and refer to the year 1850.

* In Lower Canada (1845) there re 571,714 Roman Catholics, and 43,274 Church of England.

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